


Friends

by ShastaFirecracker



Series: Choices [2]
Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Best Friends, Bisexuality, Casual Sex, Friends With Benefits, How Do I Tag, Huddling For Warmth, M/M, Pansexual Character, Polyamory, Romantic Friendship, emotional intimacy but the sex is still just for fun, it's healthy, only one bed and so on, they care about each other deeply
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:20:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22521649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShastaFirecracker/pseuds/ShastaFirecracker
Summary: Sometimes the road seems to stretch on into a scabby green-gray infinity. Making noise into the uncaring void of the wilds just makes him feel frightened of the sound of his own voice. The road is lonely. Desperately lonely.It doesn't matter that Geralt tells him to shut up at least a dozen times a day, or that Geralt orders him around when they make camp, or that Geralt never has a constructive word to say about his newest compositions. What matters is that the presence of another person makes the fist around Jaskier's chest ease its grip, lets his voice flow. And even if his voice draws wolves, he'll still be safe. Protected. That's all that matters.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Choices [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620493
Comments: 88
Kudos: 1214
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection





	Friends

**Author's Note:**

> I did not expect to write more of these two when I posted the last fic, but then the wonderful comments made me keep mulling it over and over. 'Benefits' was PWP with a veneer of character study. This is more like character study with a candy coating of sexy stuff.
> 
> Also, big appreciation here for a) the fact that Geralt talks more often and more eloquently than people seem to give him credit for, and b) he is Sass Lasers Set to Stun at basically all times.

It starts like this.

Sometimes the road seems to stretch on into a scabby green-gray infinity. Jaskier's element is human beings in concentration, and during the long, empty times alone on the road he feels... stretched. Distracted, irritable. Like all his mental and emotional muscles are paralyzed and atrophying, in a way that borders on physical pain. The need to make noise builds up in his gut and jaw like the need to vomit after too much drink. But making noise into the uncaring void of the wilds just makes him feel frightened of the sound of his own voice.

The road is lonely. Desperately lonely.

And then he chances a ride along, and so on.

So it doesn't matter that Geralt tells him to shut up at least a dozen times a day, or that Geralt orders him around when they make camp, or that Geralt never has a constructive word to say about his newest compositions. What matters is that the presence of another person makes the fist around Jaskier's chest ease its grip, lets his voice flow. And even if his voice draws wolves, he'll still be safe. Protected. That's all that matters.

Geralt learns Jaskier, over time. He pretends to be unwilling, but he learns nonetheless. Geralt learns that bullying won't wake Jaskier in the morning, but the smell of a piece of jerky dropped in front of his face will. He learns that telling Jaskier to shut up is akin to a friendly good morning, but if he really wants silence he can tell Jaskier that he sounds hoarse, like he might be coming down with something. He learns that Roach likes Jaskier's touch with a currying brush better, which Geralt treats as a real betrayal for a day or two, until Jaskier overhears him murmuring forgiveness in the horse's ear.

Ultimately, Geralt learns the path of least resistance. The easiest way to get what he wants out of Jaskier. And Jaskier's secret, of course, is that he was always willing to give Geralt what he wanted – as long as it was on Jaskier's terms.

They travel north, into the cold. Jaskier's outdoor sleep habits go from shirtless on top of the bedroll, to fully clothed and tucked inside, to bundled deep down underneath everything he owns and still shivering. There's nothing different or special about the night when Geralt gives one of his deepest and most put-upon sighs, drags his bedroll over to double up Jaskier's, lets himself into Jaskier's space without asking, and wraps him up in sweet, glorious heat like the sun just personally came down to banish winter. Jaskier doesn't have time to give any opinion of this beyond a confused noise, followed by an indignant noise, followed by a pleased moan, and ending in a snore.

Their whole relationship has been one of practical mutual benefit from the start. Coming to actually _like_ each other has been a slower process, but always a process moving in the right direction as far as Jaskier's concerned. With time, they grow accustomed to living out of each other's pockets. Geralt apparently never had a sense of modesty, and shamelessness is a trait that Jaskier has cultivated in himself since childhood, so there's never any discomfort around each other regarding bodies and their functions. It's not like either of them has anything the other one hasn't seen before.

So, it starts like this.

It's been four days between the last town and this one, except this one isn't a town anymore, it's a stinking ruin. It looks like most of the townsfolk have fled but a few still dot the town square, rotting. There's a wraith in the well and a pack of ghouls that come sniffing around at night, so Geralt has a long day's work with no hope of pay ahead of him. He drugs himself faster and stronger and does what he does best, while Jaskier sits in the high branches of an old oak and struggles to come up with some way to spin this town's anticlimactic death into a tragedy worth singing about.

The next town is a week away at best, except the summer rains have begun and the roads are bogs that threaten to suck the shoes right off Roach's hooves. There's a shed in the dead town with most of a roof left and no bodies in it, so Geralt makes their camp there. Jaskier can't sleep with the proximity of all that death, and Geralt can't sleep because of the drugs still wracking his body. They pass a miserable, damp night and an even more miserable following day – Geralt says if they can't move on they may as well clean up the town to forestall more scavengers like the ghouls. So Jaskier has to help drag bodies into piles that Geralt can cast damp-resistant magic fire onto. Jaskier throws up twice and hates Geralt more than usual by the time they're done.

They move on then, but they're traveling slower than they both want because of the rain, and the frustration is a tangible thing between them. Even Geralt's monosyllables have gone silent, and Jaskier actively makes an effort not to antagonize him. They find a sheep shelter with some old, mildewing hay in it that gets them at least out of the rain for the night, and by the time the fire's built and Geralt is stripping out of his wet clothes, Jaskier feels physically sick with the silence.

Maybe it's the tension, the blood running high. Maybe it's that it's been so long since the last town, the last warm bed with company to make it warmer. Maybe it's a little bit of that buzz that Jaskier gets when he sees a lot of awful, gruesome mortality and is thankful all the way down to his bones that he's still alive.

For whatever reason, Jaskier finds himself on a hair trigger, and Geralt's naked body in the cramped sheep shelter is the pinnacle of aesthetically pleasing. Especially because Geralt seems to be just as pent up, just as easy to stir.

Jaskier's heard Geralt jerk off plenty of times. There's no way, with Geralt's enhanced senses, that the witcher hasn't heard Jaskier doing the same. What's there to be ashamed of? Who _doesn't_ wake up from a nice dream and feel like chasing it a bit longer? But it's been a separate sort of thing before now, grouped together with anything else involving bodies and hygiene.

Jaskier is sitting up with his lute in his lap, re-applying oil to the strings to protect them from all the wet. The smooth, curved back of the instrument is resting against his groin, and he's trying to ignore the pressure. He's still wearing his damp smallclothes but nothing else. He can see right across the small fire.

Geralt huffs in apparent annoyance, folds one arm behind his head, and takes his cock in hand. Jaskier nearly breaks a lute-string. “Problem?” Geralt snaps, holding his rapidly hardening member and not quite looking at Jaskier.

Jaskier makes a hurried noise to the effect of 'oh no, not at all, go right ahead.' He hopes. After all, Jaskier does understand, and where else is Geralt supposed to go, anyway?

Geralt is almost silent except for the soft sound of skin on skin, and it takes all the willpower Jaskier has to hold down a whimper. He tries to focus on the lute, but now its pressure against his crotch is becoming a problem. He has to lay it aside after a minute, and his own interest pops up unrestrained.

Twenty more seconds and one obscenely suggestive sigh from Geralt later, Jaskier mutters _“Fuck,”_ and shoves down his smallclothes.

He comes before Geralt does, which is embarrassing, but he can't care too much because it's almost worryingly excellent for nothing more than a liason with Rosie Palms. There's something about sharing it with Geralt, listening to each other. Catching his breath and wiping the evidence off on some straw, Jaskier hears Geralt's breath hitch in a way that says he's finished, and Jaskier wonders if this is going to be a problem in the future.

But it isn't a problem the next day – or at least, it isn't mentioned the next day. Or the following, when the weather finally clears and Jaskier composes love songs to the sun all afternoon. In fact, it doesn't come up for the whole week's trip to the next town, and by the time they walk into the nearest inn, Jaskier has decided that if Geralt never brings it up then Jaskier won't either. It can fade happily away into memory.

There's no contract for the dead town's wraith or ghouls, but it turns out that a lot of the survivors had fled here, and once they hear what Geralt has done, word spreads around town and a small collection is taken up in gratitude. Jaskier encourages the sentiment in the tavern that night with a long, exceptionally loud rendition of Toss a Coin, and they wind up with fat purses and free rooms for the night. Geralt vanishes from the common room early in the evening, no doubt to soak in hot water and silence for hours.

Jaskier has a wealth of choice for company that night. Midnight draws on and half a dozen women have already either kissed him or copped a quick feel, and Jaskier's blood is running hot on the sort of high he gets from a good performance. Where he ends up, though, is in the third-floor hall just outside his room with a burly young woodsman choking on his cock, because Jaskier had impulsively decided he liked the look of broad shoulders and scruff tonight.

“Room's right there,” Jaskier tells the lad, hands in his curly black hair, as far from straight and white as you could get. (Where did that come from?)

The man pulls off, grins. “Couldn't get caught if we were in there, could we?”

“Oh,” says Jaskier, thumping his head back against the wall. Exhibitionist. Now he knows why the lad almost had Jaskier's trousers down before they reached the stairs at all. He doubts he's getting the comfort of his bed until this is over with, then.

It's fine. Better for the lad (what was his name?) than Jaskier, probably, since he's turned on by the looming threat of being caught by people he actually knows. It doesn't last long, and Jaskier pats the dazed lad on the cheek before hurriedly sliding into his room and closing the door, already half wishing he'd asked up one of the women who might have been more attentive and, more importantly, experienced.

There's only one lit candle by the bed. Jaskier's head is muzzy with drink and sex, so he thumps around while staggering out of his trousers, and in the terribly dim light he doesn't notice he has company until it sits up.

“Can you settle down without sounding like a whole herd of highland cattle?” Geralt demands.

Jaskier gives a small shriek – manly, damn it, a manly yell – and falls on his arse. “Ack,” he manages.

“Quiet,” Geralt says, and lays himself back down on the bed like nothing's amiss.

“I thought we had our own rooms!” Jaskier hisses, stumbling upright. He finishes divesting himself of anything he doesn't want to sleep in, but leaves on more than he might if he had the bed to himself.

Facing away, Geralt grumbles, “Innkeeper's letting some of the refugees stay in empty rooms. If we bunk, an extra family gets a roof.”

“Oh.” Jaskier stares at what he can see of Geralt's candlelit back for a moment, then pulls back the cover and climbs in. “That's very decent of you,” he says, but it doesn't nearly encompass what he's actually feeling. It's something akin to how he felt when Geralt offered to let Filavandrel kill him if it would make the elf feel better, and then gave away all his coin so the elves could buy food and medicine. It's a bit like love, but not the roses and sonnets kind. It's closer to the kind Jaskier is pretty sure priests are talking about when they evangelize.

Geralt responds with an annoyed huff and a wave of his hand that extinguishes the candle without him touching it. Jaskier's scalp tingles like it always does when he's reminded that witchers have more magic than they like to advertise.

In the dark, Jaskier starts, “What if I'd come in here with -”

Geralt's elbow finds his ribs and Jaskier wheezes to a stop. “I'd have sent you back to the hall,” Geralt mutters. “Go to sleep.”

So Jaskier does.

-

A hot afternoon some weeks later finds Jaskier on a pebbled lakeshore, attempting to do laundry with a sliver of lye soap that keeps trying to escape. He's on his spare pair of trousers when the soap takes a final flying leap out of his slippery hand and splashes out of sight in the deeper water.

“Shit,” Jaskier tells the lake. “Fine! Take it, it smells like sick and never gets the stains out anyway.” He dunks the barely-more-clean trousers in the water and scrubs furiously at an old grease stain with a handful of sand. He has enough coin left to buy better soap when they finally reach Vizima, anyway. The good, herbal stuff, not the harsh chunks of lye and ash that are the best the smaller villages have to offer.

He decides the trousers are as good as they're going to get and tosses them out over the rocks with everything else to dry in the sun. Then he wades back in and spends an unecessary amount of time on washing himself. It's less washing and more luxuriating, really. It's unseasonably hot for where they are, and the cool lake water feels sinfully good. He dunks his head and flings his wet hair back, squeezes water from it with both hands, and glances back to see how dinner's coming along.

He gets a faceful of naked Geralt instead, walking into the water a few yards away. Back at the fire, the small deer carcass is fully dressed and spitted. Geralt wades out deep, up to his chest, before rinsing blood off his hands and arms, splashing cool water on his face and rubbing it on the back of his neck.

“Out of soap,” Jaskier calls. “But I did get through all of your underthings first. You're welcome.”

Geralt makes a sound that Jaskier chooses to interpret as thanks.

Jaskier takes a few steps through the water in Geralt's direction, squinting. “Um – you've got a bit of pink in the hair–“ He points vaguely at the back of Geralt's head, and when the witcher turns it so Jaskier can see better, Jaskier recoils. “Oh. Oh, a lot. That's a lot of blood.”

“Deer do tend to have a lot of blood in them,” Geralt says dryly. Oh, right, he'd snuffed the poor creature with one clean bolt to the neck and then slung it over his shoulder to carry, head lolling around grotesquely on his back. It had been a little less vomit-inducing than the monster-head trophies he ties to his saddle to ply his trade, but not by much. If Jaskier were a more ascetic man, watching Geralt work might turn him vegetarian. But he's a hedonist at heart, as he believes any good bard must be, and the cooking venison is already starting to smell good.

He walks towards Geralt over the pebbly lakebed, curling his toes into the unstable stones to keep his balance. He reaches out and starts, “Here, let me get -”

Geralt chooses that moment to dunk his upper body and stand back up abruptly, flinging his hair. Pinkish lakewater splashes Jaskier's face and he devolves into spitting and cursing.

“Sorry,” says Geralt, not sounding it.

Jaskier hurriedly scoops water up over his face, rinsing off vicarious deer blood, and glares at Geralt. “See if I ever offer to scrub your back again!”

Geralt half-turns to him with a mockery of sadness on his face. “Oh no,” he says, deadpan. “How will I survive.”

Jaskier drives both hands into the water and splashes Geralt with all his strength.

The lesson Jaskier learns is this: don't pick a fight with a witcher, no matter how childish. Geralt is perhaps the most restrained man Jaskier has ever met, but for some reason, the lower the stakes, the more competitive he gets. A strategic splash in the face distracts Jaskier from Geralt launching himself into the deeper water, swimming a quick loop around Jaskier and grabbing his leg out from under him. Jaskier's undignified shriek ends with a blubbering mouthful of lake. The splashing, dragging, flailing, and yelped curses go on for indeterminable minutes, until Jaskier struggles back to the shallows, wailing, “I yield, I yield!”

Every second of indignity is made worth it by the fact that Geralt emerges from the water laughing. _Laughing._ It's more of a quiet chuckle than a belly laugh, but _still._ Jaskier is captivated for a long moment, standing in waist-deep water and watching Geralt shining-wet in the sun, bobbing in the water, gold eyes glinting, crow's feet carved deeper than Jaskier has ever seen them.

Geralt dives again and emerges still smiling faintly. He gives his hair another quick pass with his hands, but all the swimming has washed the blood off. He sniffs, wipes water out of his eyes, and wades in Jaskier's direction.

Jaskier finds himself staring. He hasn't seen a real water nymph before... are there even male ones? But he imagines Geralt as one, water streaming off his shoulders as he strides out, ethereal and beautiful – there's a song in this somewhere, Jaskier's sure of it, metaphors he could make about washing clean of sin, ummm, how witchers may be forged in fire and quenched in blood but everyone knows that a good blade has to be kept clean and cared for...

Jaskier blinks in alarm because Geralt has gotten extremely close while Jaskier was distracted in the world of his own head. “You're staring,” Geralt says, as if either of them hadn't noticed. He's close enough that Jaskier can smell his breath. Minty – he'd been chewing some earlier.

“Writing?” Jaskier offers lamely.

“A song about laundry?” The actual smile is gone but Jaskier can still see it in his eyes.

“Er,” says Jaskier. He licks his bottom lip and reaches up hesitantly to touch Geralt's hair. “Need any more help? Washing?” They both know he doesn't.

Geralt raises a hand out of the water and puts one finger to Jaskier's chest. It feels like a brand. “You fuck men sometimes,” he says, bluntly.

Jaskier feels the heat wash over his face but staunchly refuses to acknowledge his own embarrassment. “Hmm,” he says, taking a page out of the witcher's own playbook.

“And you find me attractive,” Geralt continues.

Jaskier huffs and crosses his arms over his bare chest defensively, bumping Geralt's hand away. “I mean, who doesn't?” he grumbles.

Geralt flashes an echo of his earlier grin.

“Well, glad that's all in the open,” Jaskier says sarcastically, taking a step back. “I'd hate for any aspect of my mind to not be laid completely bare for you to peruse at your leisure. Should you ever wish to be free of me you can just tell a local constable I've gone and sodomized a baron's son or something and have me taken to the stocks -”

“Jaskier,” Geralt says sharply, and Jaskier shuts his jaw with a click. Geralt steps towards him again, further out of the water, the surface level now washing dangerously low on his hips. The witcher lays a hand on Jaskier's elbow. “In the sheep shed,” he says.

Jaskier swallows hard.

“That was good?” Geralt's hand slips from Jaskier's elbow to his waist.

Shakily, Jaskier nods.

“If I touched you...” Geralt drifts off, doesn't move his hand any further. It moves with the soft swells of Jaskier's breathing.

Jaskier tries to parse Geralt's suggestion with a brain that is no longer working at full capacity. At least half of his blood supply is rushing downwards at the moment. He swallows, loosens his folded arms. “If you touched me, I imagine you'd need another wash soon,” Jaskier says, trying for haughty seduction but landing somewhere around breathless encouragement.

“Well,” says Geralt. “We're already in the water.” And his hand slides below the surface, to rest low on Jaskier's belly, right next to his suddenly incredibly hard cock.

“Oh,” Jaskier says, and, heart pounding, he unfolds his arms and puts a hand on Geralt's hard stomach as well. “And for payment?” he asks, flashing a grin he hopes is coy and not terrified.

Geralt makes a disgruntled noise. “No payment talk.”

Ah. Well, Jaskier is only a whore in the idiomatic sense, not the literal one. “Umm, mutual benefit, then,” he amends. “Would you like me to... ?”

“Only if you –” Geralt mutters, only to be cut off by Jaskier wrapping a hand boldly around his cock. Geralt makes a low, surprised sound in his throat, but immediately returns the grasp, and Jaskier suddenly has to grab onto Geralt's shoulder with his free hand to remain upright.

Geralt starts pulling, toying with him in the water. It feels amazing. Jaskier's head is light with it. He has to distract himself with talk, as always, or he'll lose his mind completely. “Um,” he says weakly, leaning into Geralt's chest and returning stroke for stroke, slow for now. “So what, uh. Prompted this. This avenue of... _oh,_ fuck, um, interest?”

“You look good wet,” Geralt says simply, drawing his thumb over Jaskier's slit. Jaskier whimpers. His spine is liquid fire and his legs don't want to hold him up at all.

“You, too, men, do you...” Jaskier gasps a moan and has to lean his forehead into Geralt's collarbone. This is too much. Geralt's grip tightens on the upstroke, a little twist at the end, and it's killing Jaskier kindly.

“I trained in a castle full of young men taking daily regimens of drugs that made us grow faster, sleep less, and sense more. Not a girl for miles. Do you think any of us didn't?”

Jaskier laughs hysterically. It's the most Geralt has ever said about Kaer Morhen at one time, and it's while he's doing _this?_

“But you _like_ it,” he says, voice too high. He means, surely at least some of those boys indulged only for the sake of convenience. Surely some of those boys, probably a lot of those boys, wouldn't honestly think Jaskier 'looked good wet.' Wouldn't want another man's prick anywhere near them if other options were available.

“Hmm,” Geralt says, leaning his face down into Jaskier's hair. It's the press of lips to his temple that does it, Jaskier thinks, or the tickle of warm, minty breath over his ear, or even the familiar monosyllabic hum. Whatever it is that tips him over, Jaskier bites the inside of his cheek when he comes, groaning pitifully and holding Geralt's neck for dear life to keep from falling. His knees buckle and Geralt gently lets go of his dick to pick him up under the thighs instead, and walks him towards the shallower water, until he can sit without drowning.

Jaskier swims hazily to his senses, and remembers that he was touching Geralt back until somewhere in there the pleasure made him forget. He drops his arm from Geralt's neck to pull him forward by the waist. Geralt closes the distance and voices no objection to Jaskier going back to returning the favor.

Geralt's eyelids flutter almost closed when he gets close. Jaskier can't even talk during this, too invested in listening for the tiny hitching changes in Geralt's breathing. Geralt gasps a little, finally, and grabs Jaskier's shoulder and holds tight, and his cock thickens and kicks against Jaskier's hand, and the water between them clouds briefly.

For a long moment there's nothing between them but silence and bird calls and the quiet sloshing of water. Then Geralt says, “If I ever hear a song about the boys of Kaer Morhen, I will find you and I will end you.”

Jaskier jerks his head up and smacks Geralt's wet chest with the back of his hand. “Must you ruin the glow so thoroughly, you ass? I thought we were having a _moment.”_

Geralt grins and tugs at a straggling lock of Jaskier's hair, and Jaskier smacks him again. And then Geralt's gone, streaming water behind him as he walks back to the fire to check on dinner.

Jaskier takes a deep, steadying breath and slaps himself lightly on the cheek a couple of times in case this was a bizarre daydream. But he doesn't wake up, so there isn't anything else to do but get out of the lake and see if the laundry is dry enough to get dressed yet.

-

So. It happens like this.

In Velen, Geralt sits on the edge of a broad tree stump in an abandoned logging camp and gingerly pulls barbed quills out of his arm. Chimeras are always a little bit different, impossible to fully prepare for. Jaskier is sitting next to him, far too close, peering at the wounds and exclaiming, “Excellent! And it was how big?” He has his notebook and a fresh quill out, writing furiously.

Geralt casts a pointed stare over at the creature's head, lying nearby.

“I know, I know, but I didn't get a good look at the rest of it,” Jaskier says. “The quills formed a sort of ruff, it looked like, or more like a crown? Hm, a crown of thorns, umm, or a thorny problem –“ His voice dips into singsong, trying out keys. “Hedgehog dire, mm-hmm fire – a king might throw his crown in scorn, but beware it be not a crown of thorrrns... No, that's terrible, give me a moment -”

Geralt growls low, carefully picking out the last quill.

“No, I'll get there,” Jaskier says, scribbling. “Took your witcher... by surprise...”

“Jaskier.”

“Flaming torch... in the eyes...”

_“Jaskier.”_

“Mmm... petrifies? Hang on, I'm sure there's another -”

Jaskier's face is abruptly turned by a firm hand on his chin, and halfway through his next word his mouth is smothered by Geralt's. Geralt doesn't give him a chance to voice more than a surprised squeak before pushing his tongue past Jaskier's lips. Jaskier grabs his forearm, forgetting the tiny quill wounds, and accidentally smears the specks of blood along Geralt's skin.

When Geralt pulls back so he can breathe, Jaskier sing-songs, “And how easy it is to get a _riiiise_ – from your witcher -”

“Shut,” Geralt says, and bodily yanks Jaskier over onto his lap, straddling Geralt's thighs, “Up,” and there go the notebook and quill into the dirt, “Bard,” and then Jaskier's mouth is too happily occupied to remember what he was singing about in the first place.

And sometimes it happens like this:

In a village inn, Geralt creaks stiffly into a tub of scalding bathwater. Fragrant steam billows up around him, the water already treated with the mix of powders the herbalist gave him to ease his pain. There's no easy way to defeat an earth elemental, but also catching the brunt of a landslide caused by the death of one is just adding insult to injury. Jaskier knows Geralt will heal quickly, but in the meantime, his skin is mottled black and blue with bruising.

Jaskier rolls up the sleeves of his chemise and dips a pitcher into the water to pour some over Geralt's hair, which is still full of rock dust. He pours some of the herbalist's special liquid soap concoction into his palm and sets to scrubbing Geralt's scalp as gently as he can.

Over long minutes, the tension eases from Geralt's body. From washing his hair, Jaskier moves on to working the knots out of his shoulders, and Geralt's chin slowly tips to his chest. Jaskier almost thinks he's asleep until Geralt's hand moves lazily under the water and a familiar spark of orange runic magic shimmers out of his fingers. Fresh steam wafts up.

“Isn't that an abuse of your powers?” Jaskier asks through a grin. He does love these moments when Geralt is weak against pleasures of the flesh. The man's attitude towards bathing is almost a fetish, and this is hardly the first time Jaskier's caught him using _igni_ to keep bathwater hot.

Geralt hums noncommittally, rolling his shoulders under Jaskier's hands.

“Any better?” Jaskier asks more seriously. He hasn't seen Geralt this hurt in a long time, and he has to admit to himself how badly it bothers him. The earth elemental hadn't been a big contract, just a minor nuisance to the town, and the injuries Geralt took in the encounter are disproportionate and unfair, in Jaskier's opinion. He'd tried to berate the town aldermen into paying double for underselling the problem, but Geralt had taken the paltry sum anyway and walked away without a word.

“Some,” Geralt sighs. “I just need sleep.”

“Right,” says Jaskier. He stands up. “I'll have them bring up breakfast later in the morning so you can rest longer. Not much distance to cover tomorrow, so -”

“Stay.”

The word is quiet, and Geralt doesn't turn his head. If Jaskier hadn't heard it, he assumes Geralt would have let him walk away none the wiser. But Jaskier does hear it, and he stops moving.

If circumstance allows them to have rooms to themselves, they take them. Even since this... thing that's been going on between them. And intimate company hasn't been exclusive, either. Sometimes Jaskier is busy with busking until the wee hours of the morning, and he sees Geralt leave the common room with a woman, who usually returns an hour or two later looking disheveled but pleased. Sometimes Geralt wants sleep and Jaskier wants _fun,_ and whatever wonderful qualities Geralt may possess, fun isn't one of them. So Jaskier has his romps, and Geralt has his, and although at first Jaskier had been worried that things would get awkward between them, they never have.

So Jaskier has the room next door. His lute and all his things are there. He followed Geralt here to help tend to his injuries, but he hadn't expected...

“Are you sure?” he asks, hesitant.

Geralt turns his head slightly, catching Jaskier's gaze sidelong. He looks so _tired._

Jaskier goes to the room next door long enough to collect his things, because he has a reasonable amount of coin at the moment and doesn't want to wake to find it gone. He deposits everything in Geralt's room, next to Geralt's dusty armor. He gets out the nice oil he treats his own hair with and sits behind Geralt again to work it through the white strands before carefully tying it back with a thin strip of leather. And when Geralt's ready, Jaskier helps him out of the bath and towels him dry before Geralt can even attempt to do it for himself.

“I'm not an invalid,” Geralt mutters.

“Hush,” Jaskier tells him. “A mountain fell on you.”

Geralt gives a long-suffering sigh but allows Jaskier to walk with him to the bed and hover unhelpfully while Geralt eases himself down to the mattress. Jaskier tugs off his damp chemise while he walks around to the other side of the bed, then strips out of his trousers before climbing in.

Jaskier moves in close to Geralt, on his side, propped up on one elbow. He drifts the fingers of his other hand over Geralt's beaten chest, keeping his touch too light to hurt. “I hate this bit,” he admits.

“My chest?” Geralt asks, deadpan.

Jaskier pouts at him. “You know, the bits I don't put in the songs. The bits when you're hurt, and the world is full of misers and idiots.”

A smile flickers at the edge of Geralt's mouth. There's unspoken thanks in his eyes.

So Jaskier kisses him.

Slow and sweet is not a thing they've done before, but it's what Geralt can tolerate at the moment, so it's what Jaskier offers. Jaskier cups Geralt's jaw and breathes in time with the witcher, keeping his body clear of Geralt's so he doesn't put pressure on his bruises. Geralt raises his head to demand more, but Jaskier retreats, keeping it gentle. He slips his hand away from Geralt's face, down to his cock, only to find it already halfway primed.

“Eager?” Jaskier murmurs against Geralt's mouth.

“Tease,” Geralt returns with a glare.

“Now, don't get pissy with me,” Jaskier tuts. “That won't help you relax at all.”

Geralt huffs with irritation.

Jaskier sits up and shifts himself to the end of the bed, carefully nudging Geralt's knees apart so he can kneel between them. He leans forward. “This might, though,” he says.  
When he takes Geralt into his mouth, it earns him a quiet _“Fuck”_ that fills him with triumphant glee.

He takes it slow but steady, no teasing or fancy tricks, just one hand on Geralt's base, other hand between his own legs because this is _very_ good, yes, he decides he that he deeply enjoys Geralt being helpless against his mouth in _any_ context. Geralt tastes of nothing but clean skin and the herbal residue of the bathwater, and eventually the light saltiness of precome. It feels like it takes forever before Geralt gives a rough sigh and strokes over Jaskier's hair, tugging gently.

Jaskier makes a negative noise, swallows harder. Geralt stops trying to pull Jaskier off, accepting that Jaskier's choices are his own.

So Jaskier can't really complain, then, when Geralt gasps in a rough breath and Jaskier abruptly has to swallow or choke. He may not have thought this through, but he's stuck with it now. He swallows, loses some down his chin anyway. Some depraved part of him finds it unbearably hot to have Geralt's come on his face, and he picks up the pace on himself, moaning for how close he is.

Geralt finally pushes him harder than he can resist, and he finds himself shoved upright as Geralt levers himself up on one hand. The other hand cups the back of Jaskier's head, and Geralt draws his tongue firmly up Jaskier's chin before closing into a kiss.

Jaskier's release hits Geralt's chest faster than Geralt could have said “shut up.”

Shuddering down from the high, Jaskier clutches at Geralt's shoulders. The distance between them is awkward, but Jaskier doesn't want to hurt Geralt with an embrace. After a lingering last kiss, Jaskier draws back, sitting on his heels. Geralt drops back down to the mattress with a slight grimace.

“You're a filthy man, Geralt,” Jaskier accuses, although there's no weight to it when his voice is wavering.

“Can't be,” Geralt sighs, settling down. “Just bathed.”

Jaskier snorts and gets up long enough to fetch a damp cloth and wipe off his face and Geralt's chest. Geralt hisses at the touch, and Jaskier murmurs apology while he climbs into the empty side of the bed and draws the covers up.

“I'll be fine in the morning,” Geralt tells him. “Just get some sleep.”

With the the smell of healing herbs thick in the air and Geralt's warmth radiating next to him, it's an easy order to follow.

-

Days pass; weeks; months. They explore each other in other ways, until they're so familiar with each other's pleasure that the knowledge feels like an intimacy in itself.

Sometimes Jaskier travels with Geralt, sometimes he doesn't. The first time they parted after they began sleeping together, Jaskier feared that separation would sour their feelings about the affair. Over time, though, he finds that what he misses about Geralt isn't the convenience of a body to rub against, but rather his big heart and mute glances and solid level-headedness. When Jaskier bathes, he wonders if Geralt is taking care of his inevitable wounds well enough. How many more scars he'll have when Jaskier sees him next. He doesn't fantasize about Geralt when he has sex – he fantasizes about Geralt being there with him by his tiny campfires, trapped into listening while Jaskier rambles. When the silence of the road gets too oppressive, Jaskier fantasizes about the whining rasp of a whetstone, or the stony clunk of a pestle endlessly grinding herbs against a mortar.

And when they meet again, the feeling that swells Jaskier's chest so full that he feels like his ribs will crack – well, it's definitely love, but exactly how to define that love still evades Jaskier, even after all this time. And although he tries to hide it, Geralt looks at Jaskier with an expression of profound relief, clearly glad the bard hasn't gotten himself killed in the time they've been apart. When Geralt leaves the little town, Jaskier invites himself along without permission, same as the first time they met. But this time he doesn't get a punch in the gut, and every now and then he gets to ride Roach.

Two weeks in, sitting by the campfire, Geralt reaches out and strokes a finger down the new silver chain around Jaskier's neck. Geralt asks for the story behind it. He's never asked Jaskier for a story before. Really, Jaskier can't be held responsible for the ecstatic ravaging that follows. Later, panting against Geralt's chest, naked and sticky, it doesn't feel strange at all to be back here with the witcher, sharing their bedrolls along with their tales.

The chain was a gift from Jaskier's latest love and muse, a nobleman's daughter on the run from a vengeful uncle. Jaskier falls in and out of love like the seasons. With a countess, and then a dairy maid, and then a young squire in Toussaint fresh from home, trembling-terrified by the grandiosity of big city life. Jaskier had laid with him in opulent court bedrooms, tracing the double scars on his chest, listening with starry eyes and music in his head while the squire explained that he had left home to seek renown as a knight while also hiding his terrible secret, that he was born the only daughter of a goat farmer.

Jaskier loves him for his story. Jaskier always falls in love with the story of a person, but eventually he runs out of ways to tell it. So he drifts to another story, and another. And every time he falls in love, it's true – he feels it truly, never shies away from the intensity of first bloom or of the wilting heartbreak – but he's afraid he isn't built for permanence. There are too many loves to experience to live his whole life beholden to just one.

Except, he has to admit, for one white-haired exception.

Jaskier parts from Geralt again one autumn day, since Geralt is headed towards Novigrad and Jaskier doesn't feel like visiting winter where it lives. He'll turn around and head south a while, he thinks. They share breakfast in the inn before they plan to ride out in opposite directions.

Jaskier is feeling morose about leaving Geralt again. He supposes he could change his plans, but he's expected in Cintra in a couple of months, so going further north now would be stupid. He listlessly picks bits of shell off a hard-boiled egg while saying, “I suppose if good old _destiny_ wants us to find each other again, we will. I just don't want this to be the last I see of you.”

“You've never been my destiny, Jaskier,” Geralt says, looking contemplatively into his cup. Jaskier stares at him in stunned hurt for a heartbeat, before Geralt glances at him and adds, “You're one of the only real choices I've ever gotten to make.”

Jaskier's throat is too tight, suddenly. He swallows down the thickness, sniffs hurriedly, looks back to his breakfast. “Well,” he says, tone light. “Choose me again in a few months, will you? Just so I know you're still alive.”

Geralt gives him a small smile and raises his cup to his lips. “I'll do my best,” he promises.

-

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how to quantify the relationship I've written here. The friendship is the real romance and the sex is just... entertainment value. I'm not sure if their friendship/relationship being this stable and healthy even makes sense with canon, but I needed it like a fuzzy blanket and a cup of cocoa.
> 
> And note that I have lost all sense of timeline. I'd say the last little chunk is definitely post-djinn, pre-Fall of Cintra, but I don't have a clue where you'd place the big Mountaintop Breakup Fiasco in this fic-world. Actually if it happened after the end of this fic, it would make the breakup wayyyy worse, so, uh... whoops ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
